Most various Man, cut down to spring no more; Before his prime, even in his infancy Cut down, and all the clamour that was he, Silenced;
The repetition here is interesting, along with the word choice. The word "cut" rather than "fallen" gives the perception that perhaps the life of the a man the speaker is talking about was taken, "cut short" in other words as the speaker alludes to. "Before his prime" and "silence" also push towards that reading of the word choice taken on by the speaker.
under the surge of the blue mottled clouds driven from the northeast—a cold wind. Beyond, the waste of broad, muddy fields
All along the road the reddish purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy stuff of bushes and small trees with dead, brown leaves under them leafless vines—
voluptuous water expressing with broken brain the truth about us—
A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool.
This brought me to think about life as a type of force, as something that pushes one along violently, rather than life as something that one may have control over. in this case the "he" being referred to didn't realize that this force was pushing him along until it was too late. Or perhaps didn't care to fight it until "entering the whirlpool".
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
A rat crept softly through the vegetation Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
Put something down. Put something down some day. Put something down some day in. Put something down some day in my. In my hand. In my hand right. In my hand writing. Put something down some day in my hand writing.
The repetition along with the adding at the end of the next line makes it sound like an act of defiance. As if cut off before the speaker could finish, the speaker must try again and again until the whole phrase is said.
How old is he. Murmur pet murmur pet murmur. Push sea push sea push sea push sea push sea push sea push sea push sea. Sweet and good and kind to all.
While the meaning behind these lines are hard to grasp, they seem to offer sounds here that may speak to the "Melancholy" that is spoken about. Almost like when there are a lot of people speaking at once in a big room, you can't really here the individual words but the hum. The last line, "Sweet and good and kind to all" has a sing song quality to it as well.
I am not missing.
Even within all of the jumble of the lines above, and the lack of a voice before this, "I am not missing" gives the narrator of the poem a form of identity or maybe the beginning of one. So many things being described, but the speaker is very much present and accounted for.
Was once the beauty Abishag, The picture pride of Hollywood. Too many fall from great and good For you to doubt the likelihood. Die early and avoid the fate.
The reference to Hollywood here makes the "beauty" referred to in the passage as a sort of commodity, and once the "beauty" is gone, so is the money. The passage seems to convey a warning to "avoid the fate", to avoid the loss of said commodity, to die before that which produces money wastes away and is no longer of use.
The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there,
This speaks on the idea that human progress is not always seen as it is happening. The beginning of a project looks totally different towards the middle and by the end the difference between what once was and now became seem far apart. The process in snapshots does not show the growth.
Be sure, they met me with an ancient air,— And yes, there was a shop-worn brotherhood About them; but the men were just as good, And just as human as they ever were.
The line "just as human as they ever were" seems to put the young and the new side by side, causing the juxtaposition of the "young blood" and the "ancient air" to show the changes between the two stages. But also in doing so, the speaker gives the reader the chance to see all of the similarities between the two as well. Through this the speaker not only gets us to see the two but also makes us question the way we see the two stages and contemplate why there seems to be one we hold higher than the other.
WHEN I died, the circulating library Which I built up for Spoon River, And managed for the good of inquiring minds, Was sold at auction on the public square, As if to destroy the last vestige Of my memory and influence.
This passage brought up the question on what the speaker is leaving behind as his legacy. At first it may seem like the library itself is what he is leaving behind, but after a closer look, it seems to be the knowledge that can be acquired by the books is what he is leaving behind. Which when it comes to gaining knowledge through books, the idea that everyone has a different way of viewing whatever the knowledge may be posses the question of if his influence will still carry on the same way.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, Anger, discontent and drooping hopes? Degenerate sons and daughters, Life is too strong for you– It takes life to love Life.
This passage stating to me that the only woman is saying that life is too short to be unhappy. During her long life the only woman had much sadness that she could have focused on, but instead she kept herself busy with life and focused on the good instead of the bad that occured.
“What is it, little girl?” he said. “Don’t go walking about like that—you’ll get cold.” I though it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I really was not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me away. “Why darling!” said he, “our lease will be up in three weeks, and I can’t see how to leave before. “The repairs are not done at home, and I cannot possibly leave town just now. Of course if you were in any danger, I could and would, but you really are better, dear, whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better, I feel really much easier about you.”
This interaction between John and the speaker really displayed the power dynamic and the loss of power that the speaker has in her life due to the control that John has over her. Along with that there is also the words used by John when referring to the speaker like, "little girl", "darling", and the reoccurring use of "dear" makes it seem as if she is not an equal partner in his life but rather a child that he has to look after and control.
She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick! But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off from these windows.
John's sister seems to come off as the parallel character to the speaker. While the speaker is unable to care for the baby or the home as a wife during this time period is believed to do, John's sister takes the role that she is unable to fulfill. Similarly, the writing that the speaker does, is seen as something that causes the mind strain, causing a woman and wife who is believed should be capable of caring for the family and the home, incapable of doing anything.
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
In "Dynamo and the Virgin" the sense of duality came from the comparison of consciousness and reality, and with this quote by Du Boise he puts into words the turmoil between the two, the meaning that is placed and lost, and the measuring according to the views of others. These two together cause a a sort of dance that keeps them in constant motion, similar to the driving force.
the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.
Similar to Adam in the Dynamo and the Virgin text discussed last class, we see the idea of not being able to see the truth of something straight on, but rather the effects that it has on the person observing it. This in turn gives Du Boise the objectiveness of seeing "himself" not through his eyes, but through the understanding of others unlike him.
To him, the dynamo itself was but an ingenious channel for conveying somewhere the heat latent in a few tons of poor coal hidden in a dirty engine-house carefully kept out of sight; but to Adams the dynamo became a symbol of infinity. As he grew accustomed to the great gallery of machines, he began to feel the forty-foot dynamos as a moral force, much as the early Christians felt the Cross. The planet itself seemed less impressive, in its old-fashioned, deliberate, annual or daily revolution, than this huge wheel, revolving within arm’s length at some vertiginous speed, and barely murmuring–scarcely humming an audible warning to stand a hair’s-breadth further for respect of power–while it would not wake the baby lying close against its frame.
This passage conveyed to me the idea that ignorance is bliss. What to one person seems to be ugly and uneventful, might be grand and beautiful to another. The idea that a symbol has the power to convey many different ideas to different people, while the object is still the same is, what I believe the author is trying to emphasis here.
The symbol was force, as a compass-needle or a triangle was force, as the mechanist might prove by losing it, and nothing could be gained by ignoring their value. Symbol or energy, the Virgin had acted as the greatest force the Western world ever felt, and had drawn man’s activities to herself more strongly than any other power, natural or supernatural, had ever done; the historian’s business was to follow the track of the energy; to find where it came from and where it went to; its complex source and shifting channels; its values, equivalents, conversions. It could scarcely be more complex than radium; it could hardly be deflected, diverted, polarized, absorbed more perplexingly than other radiant matter.
The symbol being compared with force concept made me contemplate the power that a thing can posses when we place value on whatever it may be. Here though, the question seems to be how does a symbol posses it's power? The idea that at one point something that holds lots of power held nothing seems to question the importance on what we believe has importance.
The pen works for itself, and acts like a hand, modelling the plastic material over and over again to the form that suits it best. The form is never arbitrary, but is a sort of growth like crystallization, as any artist knows too well; for often the pencil or pen runs into side-paths and shapelessness, loses its relations, stops or is bogged. Then it has to return on its trail, and recover, if it can, its line of force.
This passage brought to mind the saying, "that the pencil is mightier than the sword." The personification of the pen and pencil in this passage works to show that the act of writing, creativity, or even art itself, hold power similar to the way physical force may posses. The idea, that that a thought or creation has the ability to diverge from the course and somehow loose itself and have to find it's way back to the intended purpose speaks upon the creative process as a force, rather than just a spontaneous even that occurs.
Earth is eating trees, fence posts, Gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones, “Come home, Come home!” From pig balls, From the ferocity of pig driven to holiness, From the furred ear and the full jowl come The repose of the hung belly, from the purpose They Lion grow.
In this stanza the personification of "Earth" and "Pig" works to show charcteristics to different groups. Looking at it through that lens it makes it seem like the "lion" is not necessarily a person but perhaps a thing that controls both groups. And it that were the case it seem as if "they lion" is not ingramatically speaking about a lion but perhaps the way that something is pronounced. For me, "they lion" sounds close to maybe "they're lying" or "their lying" but if that were the case I am not sure what the lie would be. But, though that be the case, the difference between the description of the pig and earth show a division of some sort between two groups.
Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter, Out of black bean and wet slate bread, Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar, Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies, They Lion grow
In this stanza I get the sense that between the first and second part there is a sort of division. In the first half there seems to be a listing of more domestic objects that are in perhaps less than ideal condition. For example the burlap sack is something that can connote a economic standing that is less than ideal compared to an item that may be associated with a more financially comfortable living situation. As for the second half there seems to be a feeling of grosing anger the "acids" and "tar" seem to suggest a boiling of anger within, the kind that boils and sticks, growing more and more corrosive as time goes by. This stanza as a whole however seems to show the relationship between circumstance and the feeling of unrest towards the situation as a whole.